Mass Observations

Observations of the Rose Theatre with Brett

I am currently sat cross legged in front of the Rose Theatre of Edge Hill University, surrounded by five other writers like myself quietly penning down our observations.

Of course it’s not exactly quiet at the moment, as builders not too far from us are noisily making changes to some of the students not too far from the theatre; the Margaret Halls I think?

My surroundings currently consist of just me and the other the writers and, despite the noise, I feel calm. Possibly the calmest I’ve felt all week as I think fresher’s week may have turned me into an alcoholic, at least temporarily. With such a huge change to my life and the blur of all the events I’ve attended now with the new friends I’ve made, this is a welcome juxtaposition to the manic week I’ve had. I’m not entirely sure what has brought on this peaceful feeling, but I’ve got a hunch that it’s something to do with this quiet reflection I am having here as I sit and observe my surroundings.

Directly in front of me is a window of the Rose Theatre; it’s surrounded by shrubbery and has a sort of cuboid shape, it protrudes outward from the building,

–the builders seem to have stopped now, it’s a little more peaceful.

- the cuboid window stands quite tall in front of me, and one of the windows is a poster for the film Paul.

Oh cool, a helicopter just flew overhead, right over the rose theatre.

I’ve just seen a woman inside the building through the ‘cuboid’ thing, she was wearing a red turtleneck top and had blonde curly hair, she sort of reminded me of my aunty or one of my old secondary school teachers; weird… she definitely looked like she works here.

Still sat in the same position… some more constructions workers have driven past now, just flew by to my left and driven off towards the main building, driving their yellow diggers flashing their lights, only thing it’s missing is one of them sitting on the front shouting ‘nee naw nee naw nee naw’ – always have wondered why diggers need flashing lights, it’s not like you can miss a big yellow mud shovel on wheels.

It’s quiet again, still just us sitting here writing. Me and five other people observing the building and its surroundings, not much is happening here really. Only a few people walking past, most people are probably busy in lectures or something.

Just behind me are some bushes, the kind with vast multitudes of miniscule green leaves all over them, it’s a fairly small leg height sort of bush and it’s surrounded by woodchip, very interesting. Then, just to the right of that and almost diagonally behind is the Rose Theatre’s entrance, to give you an idea of where I’m sitting (if any).

More observations.. . some of the drama students are just walking by in front of us towards the theatre and – What is this?! A flying Godzilla like bat creature has just flown overhead and let out an ear piercing howl of death!! The other writers are panicking as am I, I’ll have to write on the move now, this is intense stuff. Its eyes are horrifying, huge diamonds that seem to pierce the soul. It’s spitting acid across the campus now, the humanity! Oh snap, Nicholas Cage has just ran out of the Rose Theatre, he seems to be here to take on the horrific creature – Damn, the acid got him. His face is melting away and he’s screaming like in that movie The Wicker Man about “The Bees” and “MY EYEESS!!” – I’m still writing in front of him, keeping a careful log of these events of course.

Well, this crisis seems to have rectified itself, a flying Robert Smith has destroyed it in what could have possibly been the most epic battle of the century, but I’ll have to tell that story another time. I could probably write about my interesting surroundings for at least a few more hours before I run out of steam, but I figure I should cut my interesting observational tale short here. The ‘creature’ has retreated and Nicholas Cage is fine, he was just over – acting as usual.

(All South Park references were completely unintentional, honest)

Well, a fun 30 minutes has been had, all is well again and now it’s off to more lectures…


Brett Hackett



Concilio Consilium

The words 'IN CONCILIO CONSILIUM' burn in the sandstone block that tops
the proud building, its edges smouldered by time and filigreed with moss.
The black shadows cast by the winter sun fill the bevelled letters like
liquid. Four grotesque gargoyle heads hold up the words, their mocking faces
sneering at the all-important phrase; 'In council is wisdom'. The entire
sandstone scene is crowned by a grand crest, not unlike the ones that top
regal tombs. The Latin inscription acting as the stone epitaph.

Below the morbid headstone, green revolving doors turn perpetually, sweeping
in and swallowing unsuspecting students like an iron mouth. The doors spit
out a pretty blue haired girl whose bright hair makes the grey sky darken
enviously. Veins of charcoal grey line the swollen clouds like stretch
marks; threatening weak points that promise rain. Somewhere near someone
strikes a match on the sandstone wall and the smell of burning wood and
tobacco blooms and blends with the sickly sweet stench of rotting leaves and
winter.

A bird flies overhead, its black silhouette cuts the white sky, splitting
the belly of the clouds and the winter sun briefly summons enough power to
break through the clouds, drenching everything in a liquid warmth.

A tiny black fly defiantly struts across my white paper, determined to
distract. It traces my sentences, almost getting squashed under pen by this
very word. Unaware it carries on, spluttering the still wet print with its
wings as it pushes off and flies dazedly, drunk from the concentrated smell
of the sweet ink.

Laura Tickle



The Lake


The wind rustled through the slowly dying reeds. Autumn was starting to take hold slowly fading the once bright and youthful yellows and greens to a dull brown. The ducks wading in the shallow lake seemingly laughing to themselves as students, new, old, youthful and aged alike wander around in the hopes they can find where they are going. The clouds above mimic the atmosphere in some pathetic fallacy; the newer students are given away by their eyes screaming to all who pass by “help me I’m lost”. The bordering on harsh humour of watching girls trot past the geese in fear like some odd new dance I am oblivious to makes me smile, whilst at the same time I keep distance between them and myself and realise my sudden irony. The buildings though seem modern echo the experience of former students, whilst the sun hides from us behind clouds, a sudden break and I feel the warmth graze the nape of my neck; the more intense students take note of this and consider it a ray of hope, taking the tension away from their stress momentarily. Whilst I feel a weight lifted the sun shields itself once more and the leaves the lake draped in a grey threatening rain, whilst the light is gone, fortunately the feeling remains.

Josh Evans